LAS VEGAS—Here on the show floor of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference, there’s an awful lot of equipment that is beyond the purchasing power of most average individuals. That is to say, most people will wait for their company to invest in that $16,000 Codex ARRIRAW digital recorder that’s being demoed at NAB rather than save up to buy it themselves.

But a number of products at NAB dance the line between professional-grade video cameras and cameras you might buy for a side project you’re particularly dedicated to. Below are some of the cool new things we saw on the show floor.

Accessorizing your POV shot

Sony's Action Cam has been taking shots at GoPro for a while now, and while GoPro is still the first name many people think of when they think of point-of-view (POV) video, the Action Cam has also received a lot of attention on the show floor this week. Perhaps a lot of the hype comes from Sony's latest Action Cam accessory, the Live View Remote wristwatch.

Sony’s wrist-mounted remote controller, first announced at CES back in January, retails for $150 and pairs with many of Sony's Wi-Fi and NFC-enabled cameras, including (as was seen on the show floor) Sony's Action Cam. Sony will be bundling its latest "splashproof" Action Cam, which usually retails for $299, with the Live View Remote later this year for $399.

The Live View Remote goes on your wrist and streams exactly what the Action Cam is recording via Wi-Fi, so you can just look down and make adjustments as you’re, say, running through the woods, filming a Blair Witch-type scene. Currently, the Live View Remote can connect to five separate cameras, and you can toggle through to see each of the streams as they're filming. With a firmware update this summer, Sony representatives told us that the wristwatch will be able to manage 10 different cameras.

The wireless wristwatch may make Sony more of an option for some POV camera customers. Both Sony and GoPro have iOS and Android apps that allow you to view what you're recording live, but sometimes keeping an eye on a smartphone is hard, especially if you're in motion.

Still, GoPro had some interesting new products of its own to demo. GoPro's booth was showing off its latest housing and mounting options, specifically its new $50 Blackout housing and the $200 Dual Hero System, which links two GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition cameras.

Megan Geuss

The Action Cam includes a mini-HDMI port, a mini-USB port, an expansion connector, and a stereo mini jack.

Megan Geuss

The Action Cam includes a mini-HDMI port, a mini-USB port, an expansion connector, and a stereo mini jack.

Megan Geuss

The camera can shoot 1080p at 60 fps and uses Sony's proprietary SteadyShot image stabilization techniques. Without SteadyShot on, you can get a 170° viewing angle; with SteadyShot, that angle reduces to 120°.

Megan Geuss

The right side of Sony's latest Action Cam. The Camera can connect via Wi-Fi and NFC to a smartphone or to the Live View Remote.

Megan Geuss

Here's the new part: this remote controller wristwatch recently hit the market and lets you see the footage your camera is taking (from the top of your helmet, say) via Wi-Fi. Those toggle buttons on the left let you scroll through your video streams, and on the right side of the screen a film strip icon will show up for each camera you have connected.

Megan Geuss

A side view of the wristwatch.

Megan Geuss

Maybe you like creeping around the neighborhood undetected. In such a situation, you might try GoPro's Blackout housing, a black matte case with LCD-hiding stickers, made to reduce visibility in the field. The Blackout case will only put you out $50 if you already have the Hero3 or Hero3+ camera to go with it.

Megan Geuss

A side view.

Megan Geuss

GoPro's Dual Hero System. This system takes two Hero3+ Black Edition cameras (each $400 and sold separately) and fits them into a special housing that will enable them to take synchronized 2D video and convert the video to 3D with GoPro's free editing software. Or the cameras can be set up so that one takes video and the other takes still shots simultaneously.

Megan Geuss

The back of the Dual Hero System. The two cameras are connected, so you can control both cameras from one camera interface.

Megan Geuss

The Dual Hero System housing is waterproof down to 197 feet underwater.

Megan Geuss

The waterproof housing comes in handy if you want to invade the privacy of some sharks and fish.

Gather ye video while ye may

Because NAB is a conference for broadcast production people, many booths showed off professional-quality video capture products—stuff not quite within the range of the average hobbyist video producer. But we also stopped by a booth showcasing the products of a production tool company called Atomos.

Atomos designs recorders that capture video from your camera's sensor and convert that video to Apple's ProRes video compression format. With an external recorder, your camera doesn't have to compress video into an AVCHD format, so you get higher-resolution video to work with when you're ready to edit.

We specifically took a look at Atomos' newly announced, low-cost Ninja Star, which retails for $295. The company is targeting the kinds of people who would buy a Sony Action Cam or a GoPro to film extreme sports or video from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The Ninja Star weighs 3.5 oz and uses a CFast card that should record more than two hours of ProRes video.

Enlarge/ The Atomos Ninja Star at the bottom right, connected to a GoPro.

Livestream the parade

Finally, the company Livestream was present at NAB this week, showing off some of its new hardware and software products for people who need affordable-yet-professional-looking coverage of real-time events. The streaming platform used the conference to announce its new Google Glass app, which lets users stream video from the headset after opening the app with the voice command "Livestream" and then hitting record.

Livestream also showed off its first foray into video mixing boards with the Livestream Studio Surface, which will go on sale later this month. The basic version will start at $6,000, which is a sizable chunk of change, but the board is meant to give a professional touch to audio mixing and video streaming, allowing users to put text overlays on multiple video streams, insert ads into video, or add playback into a stream using Livestream's Studio Software. (The software is available from Livestream without any of the hardware for $800.)

A Livestream representative told us that the company's prospective customers include churches, which use the tools to broadcast services and ceremonies like weddings.

16 Reader Comments

I was looking at getting the Ninja 2 to pair with a 5D mark III and a nice lens, but this would be even better. (I know you can use the 5D without an external recorder, but I usually need to record about an hour of continuous video, which the 5D can't do unless you use the HDMI out.) But the Ninja 2 is like $700, and you have to buy a laptop hard disk for it, and does a lot more than I really need. The Ninja Star is pretty much exactly what I want.

Well if you feel like mounting your phone on your surfboard, ski helmet, or handlebars, be my guest. Most people would probably not want to endanger their phones like that though.

It's not just that, I think comparing a phone camera to some of these dedicated pieces of semi and total pro pieces of camera is like comparing an air rifle with a gun that a ship uses for anti aircraft.

Heck, just a good EF lens would set you back well beyond what most people would ever pay for a mobile phone.

If 3D VR headsets like the Oculus Rift (or Sony's) take off, I think there will be renewed interest in 3D video. In fact this 3D POV video seems perfectly matched to the kind of immersion that those headsets will offer.

If 3D VR headsets like the Oculus Rift (or Sony's) take off, I think there will be renewed interest in 3D video. In fact this 3D POV video seems perfectly matched to the kind of immersion that those headsets will offer.

Watch the P0rn industry revolutionize the 3D POV camera. I wouldn't be surprised.

I've been interested in the Go Pro series for a little while now but actually the Sony Action Cam looks pretty neat with the wrist watch. I probably won't bite for either for a bit longer but it is definitely good to see a bit of competition.

I've been interested in the Go Pro series for a little while now but actually the Sony Action Cam looks pretty neat with the wrist watch. I probably won't bite for either for a bit longer but it is definitely good to see a bit of competition.

I own a number of GoPros and the Sony ActionCam (the prior HDRAS30 model). I like both for various reasons, but the new ActionCam still suffers from the same issue as the prior one.... silly shape and port placement. Even with the new model having the mounting screw on the bottom, as soon as you screw it onto a mount you can't access the ports. You also can't sit it somewhere, plugged in and recording because the ports are on the base. Every other camera manufacturer seems to have figured this out... put the ports on the side, top or back. Also, when you take it in and out of the case, you almost always get fingerprints on the lens. Everyone else worked that out too... load the camera into the case lens first. Also the case has a plastic lens, not glass, and can't tilt with the supplied mounts, so it's one angle only. Again, all things GoPro worked out years ago.OK, no more whinging. The ActionCam takes nice footage and the steady shot helps a lot when shooting with lots of vibration, which the GoPro can't do.

If 3D VR headsets like the Oculus Rift (or Sony's) take off, I think there will be renewed interest in 3D video. In fact this 3D POV video seems perfectly matched to the kind of immersion that those headsets will offer.

Unfortunately, capturing stereo from a fixed viewpoint is going to be really, really unpleasant to watch on a wide FoV HMD like the Rift. Capturing it from a moving viewpoint (e.g. from a helmet) is going to cause a Sudden Loss of Lunch incident within a minute or two. For comfortable VR viewing, your video must only change orientation when the user turns their head (or uses a controller, but even that turns out to be a LOT harder than just slaving stick angle to rotation velocity), which means taking a near-360° panorama and stabilising this.

Currently, there is no camera system that can capture live stereoscopic 360° video. You can capture flat 360° video, or a 360° still kind-of-stereo panorama (rotate a camera pair of the correct separation around a central point forming a pair of offset panoramas, but this only works if you never tilt your head). Capturing stereoscopic video for 360° will need something more like a Light Field camera setup. Think a dense array of Lytros with a camera-to-camera separation of the volume of the desired head-movement space.

Come to think of it, that GoPro rig doesn't look like it separates the lenses enough for comfortable stereo (around 60-65mm to match average human IPD).

Well if you feel like mounting your phone on your surfboard, ski helmet, or handlebars, be my guest. Most people would probably not want to endanger their phones like that though.

It's not just that, I think comparing a phone camera to some of these dedicated pieces of semi and total pro pieces of camera is like comparing an air rifle with a gun that a ship uses for anti aircraft.

Heck, just a good EF lens would set you back well beyond what most people would ever pay for a mobile phone.

Some (most?) Ars readers seem to have a total lack of any sense of humor. I think x76's post is funny, and it sure seems intended that way. Whenever I pull out my still or video camera there's always someone who points out that my phone can do that, suggesting I'm an idiot for not just using the crappy camera with the tiny little lens that comes with my phone - which I should point out cost less than either of my cameras. This post was clearly making fun of such individuals, and I would have thought the Ars crowd would appreciate the humor, but apparently that's just x76 and me.

CFast may be the issue with the Ninja Star. At present, there are relatively few CFast v1 cards on the market; and, the 'bang for the buck' of such cards is very low, in my opinion, with relatively slow speeds for a fair bit of money. CFast v2 is quite a bit speedier; but, to date, there is only one vendor manufacturing these cards and, at ~$650 for the smallest CFast v2 card, it adds quite a bit of expense to the Star.

In my opinion, Atomos should release a Star using either the latest Compact Flash (CF) or, in the alternate, XQD v1 or XQD v2.

I'm really curious about the livestream price point. for $6k I could get a BlackMagic ATEM switch, a couple camera converters and ~2-3 entry level cameras (possibly with glass). That would set me up to expand later, and can already hook into livestream.

I'm really curious about the livestream price point. for $6k I could get a BlackMagic ATEM switch, a couple camera converters and ~2-3 entry level cameras (possibly with glass). That would set me up to expand later, and can already hook into livestream.

Am I missing something?

I'm concerned that Livestream might have a bit too much lock-in with their service (I don't know if their hardware will also support other streaming services such as Ustream, or even YouTube?).

We use Livestream extensively at work, and the Livestream broadcaster box is great, but I'd sure love to make my streams available on more than one service provider...